Solution

ID: past-exam-of-the-differential-equations-and-applications-course-of-the-university-of-oxford/2010/a/2/ii/b/beta/solution

Every image of is a linear combination . The function is not such a combination. Indeed these functions are continuous, so equality almost everywhere would imply equality everywhere; evaluation at the endpoints would require simultaneously and . Therefore the forcing is outside the image and there is no solution. Orthogonality to the kernel is the equivalent image test for this self-adjoint finite-rank operator.

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